


Honeymoon

by venomPunk



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: AU, Christmas, Honey, John has a secret, M/M, sherlock reveals it, top!John
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-01
Updated: 2021-01-04
Packaged: 2021-03-09 19:55:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 3,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27821860
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/venomPunk/pseuds/venomPunk
Summary: AU, where John stops by a stall with honey products at the Christmas fair.Of course the owner will be Sherlock.
Relationships: Sherlock Holmes/John Watson
Comments: 2
Kudos: 29





	1. 4 weeks to Christmas

"You look like you need a shot."  
  
John looks up and sees gray eyes that reflect the ridiculous Christmas lights. For a moment he forgets the last shift in the hospital. His empty stomach and the empty fridge he has at home. A can of tomato soup, bread and cheese, which he carries in a paper bag.  
  
"Yeah, I really need that."  
  
Slender fingers scoop something golden yellow and hot into a paper cup. It smells like honey. After all, like the whole stand.  
John sniffs carefully. In a second, it recognizes honey from meadow flowers, cinnamon and a drop of cherry juice, then tastes it. His face twists as the sweetness of the drink almost burns his throat.  
  
" What is it?"  
  
"Mead," the salesman smiles, shrugs, and looks down at the assortment on his counter. There are candles, cups with unknown matter, jars of different coloured - and differently fragrant honey.  
  
" It's very good."  
  
"Really?"  
John looks at the tall man behind the counter. He has black hair in which snow flakes are caught. They are not melting yet. His cheeks are slightly pink with cold, he´s smelling of tea, tobacco and, of course - honey. But there is still something under all this ...  
  
"No. It tastes like piss of a drunken diabetic."  
  
He stares at John for a moment, the insane carols roaring around and the chirping people.  
  
Then he bursts out laughing and overwhelms the whole world around him.

*

  
It was finally over. John closed the door, frozen, with blue lips and frost behind his fingernails, along with all sorts of forest dirt. He put on sweatpants and a sweater, turned up the heating tap, and boiled the water.  
  
It was dawn.  
  
The newly fallen snow only complicated everything - illuminating the whole landscape, so that even at night it was visible for miles on the moors away. Especially if it was a full moon. Over the years, however, he had managed to get used to complications of all kinds, and the winter landscape was the smallest.  
  
He didn't know why he had chosen this little town. He always liked them - villages, neat houses, gardens ... He had spent the last ten years in the big city, working in a private medical center, disappearing into the countryside for a few days a month and no one asked him anything.  
  
He was lonely. He wanted to indulge in at least the illusion of being close to other people, maybe just by being greeted by someone in the square, that he could go for a beer and the bartender would know which one he liked, to put nice bloody steaks aside in the store for him ... and he had enough experience so that he doesn't endanger unsuspecting people when the time comes.  
  
Now he drove thirty miles to the district hospital, taking double shifts, not minding work at night if he could take time off. They thought he was a bit of an annoying weirdo, but he did the job conscientiously, didn't neglected the patients, didn't constantly growl because of his low salary, so there was no reason not to accommodate each other.  
  
The water began to boil, so he prepared a cup and a can of tea. He ruffled his blond hair with gray strands that would need to be cut, and bits of brown leaves fell on the kitchen counter. Later it will be the shower and a good sleep, but now he needed to warm his entrails.

His gaze fell on a jar of honey.


	2. 3 weeks to Christmas

"Hi John. As usual?"

"Yeah, and give me a double one, Jim.

Today was awful."

John brushed snow from his hair, unbuttoned his jacket, and sat down at the bar.

At _O'Neill_ , the Christmas decorations raged and the jukebox roared _Wham!_ Or _Mariah Carey_.

"It´s the slippery ice, huh? " Jim smiled knowingly as he poured him a glass of Laproaigh.

"You have no idea how many retirees are in town until they start breaking legs on the sidewalks in front of their houses."

Jim laughed and placed a full glass in front of John.

Significantly, just at that moment, the stream of hard-to-recognize Christmas songs stopped, because someone sane (and probably also depressed) played Golden Brown.

"I wouldn't expect such cynicism from a doctor," the dark Irishman winked at John.

"I've been in the military, too. Have you never seen M.A.S.H?" he reised up his glass and drank it with a nod.

"Better than mead?" it suddenly there was a voice behind John.

There was a salesman from a square honey-stall. Only now did the doctor notice that he looked almost like a boy, but he couldn't be much younger from him. He was wearing a dark vest, a knitted sweater, and fingerless gloves. John avoided the square for two weeks after tasting the infernally sweet glue and being forced to buy at least one jar of dark forest honey.

"This one is _exactly_ for you," he told him then, and John's gaze then involuntarily slid down his throat - exposed, white and so beautifully fragile that he longed to bite into it immediately, whetherthere would be any reason for that.So he bought the glass and quickly dropped out of the Christmas fair.

He liked the honey.

God and _how much_!

"Definitely yes."

"Then I'll have one too," he nodded at the bartender and sat down to John's right.

He was shamelessly tall.

"I'm Sherlock, by the way. And you're the doctor who moved into the house after an old mother Earwing, a few months ago."

"Yeah, but feel free to call me John, it'll be shorter."

They shook hands, and when a drink landed in front of Sherlock, they drank for acquaintance

. Out of the corner of his eye, John watched Sherlock´s neck as he drank.

"So ... you make honey things?"

"I sell, I make ... I´m a beekeeper, too."

"You don't look like that - that is, when you say beekeeper, I imagine a retired old man."

"Yeah, you're not alone. Maybe I'll work on that one day."

“Oh for Christ's sake, John, just don't let him tell you about beekeeping, he can grind about it for hours," Jim said, walking around with a tray full of beers. In that last expression, John caught a slight hint that Jim wasn't _kicking the home team_. As he walked away thoughtlessly, he looked down at his ass. And when he looked up, he saw that Sherlock had noticed that.

But he said nothing, just picked up one corner of his amazing lips and drank.

*

The moon was waning. John liked this time of the month, and his surroundings liked him even better. He lost sarcasm and biting humor, was more approachable and somehow more polite. More human. At the same time, however, he felt much more ... _flat._ As if he had a cold and all the smells, so clear until then, had disappeared from the world. And where there were no smells, there were no feelings. At this time, he usually didn't understand the creature he was a week ago, two weeks ago ... he was a stranger, someone who was prevented from listening to primordial instincts only by an iron will. It was confusing ...

But then he told himself that if women could handle it with their monthly cycles and a cocktail of hormones, they could do it too. At one time he even came up with a slightly sexist joke about it _:_ Do you know why there are so few female werewolves? Few can turn into a man-eating beast twice a month.

He never ate or attacked a man. But that didn't mean he didn't have ... fantasies. They were of varying intensity over the phases of the moon, but he had already learned how to tame them. More or less. He was able to combine his predatory instinct with the sexual one, and when he added the fact that he wasn't very picky ... The victim, or rather his partner, had to be submissive, and that was all he cared about. At that time, both were satisfied. He wouldn't be able to fight for supremacy in bed. It might not end well.

He remembered Jim from the bar. He was small, like John, but much more subtle. He had graceful movements of a gay man, though he could master it. He could be willing ... But then there was the salesman from the fair. Sherlock. A special person with a special name and a special profession. John's thought of him – in his mouth he was related to the taste of honey he had bought from him. Something exactly for you ... It was a strong provocation . John hasn't experienced that yet. Everyone instinctively sensed that _he_ was the one who chose - and usually chose someone like Jim - they were shy, with big dark eyes as deer, destined to be used ...

But no Sherlock. His eyes were like a blizzard. And it is dangerous even for wolves. John sat comfortably by the fireplace in an old chair with a honey that barely remained at the bottom of the jar.There is no point in dealing with this now.

Now was a period of rest.


	3. 2 weeks to Christmas

John felt like he was in a yoga ashram. There was a Christmas atmosphere everywhere, he even took a few days off around the New Year because his maternal colleague was returning, he bought enough books to handle the power outage when everyone connected the trees. It even stopped snowing, the sun came up and the air filled with freezing crystals. He didn't mind the people in the hospital either, everyone was excited and one lady even brought him a box of candy for his care.

He felt calm, composed, and thought about what it would be like to feel like this for a whole month. Apparently fine - if he was normal, by now he would have a little one, two children, medical practice somewhere in Glasgow and would be insanely happy, just like the people all around.  
But John was not naive. This stage will last a few days and then everything will start again.  
It was time to choose.

  
...

"Are you freezing here for whole month?"  
  
He was greeted by a smile and wrinkles in the corners of blue eyes.  
  
"Yeah, until Christmas Day. The advantage is that I'll secure myself for the rest of the winter. Then I'll crawl into my burrow and wait until spring and the bees wake up."  
  
John reaches into his bag.  
"Here, I brought you something."  
  
Sherlock comes out of the booth to look.  
"Thanks, but Molly from candy store brings me tea ..."  
  
Despite that, John forced a thermos flask to him.  
  
"This one is special. In some states, you'd need a prescription."  
  
Sherlock unscrews the cap and sniffs. Then he smiles.  
  
"Something exactly for you," John says, looking into the eyes of the snowstorm, even though out there was peace all around, carols and the smell of cinnamon.  
  
Then he leaves without looking back. The trap is set.


	4. 1 week to Christmas

The tension is beginning to be felt. Smells are more pronounced, colors sharper, humor blacker. This period also has its advantages ... he watches Jim, his gaze, he feels his excitement, he knows that the bartender would like to invite him to a Christmas party at the bar. He won't dare. He's like a deer in rut ... but it has no effect on predators.

But when John finds himself near the square, he can clearly smell wine, honey and _him_. He has experience.

He had a hard time looking for a submissive in the army. Brawls under the desert moon, blood, sweat and semen, the uncertainty of life that made him feel how sweet it is. _Sweet_.

 _What will he be like when John tastes him?_ _Will he smell like his honey?_

The idea is born in John's brain, and that traitor lets him harden right on the street. When a group of schoolgirls in plaid skirts walk by, he is grateful for his half-length coat. Then he walks to the square, sees Sherlock taking a box of his products and walking towards the church. John breaks through the crowd of shoppers and traders, greets a few people he knows from the pub, and after a few minutes runs up the stairs to the temple of God.

Inside, the cold is almost as much as outside, empty and quiet.He doesn't see Sherlock anywhere.

Catholic churches are fascinating.

High ceilings, colored windows, candles, saints made of white marble, to which human instincts are completely unknown. In front is a stylized Bethlehem with the baby Jesus and all the parade around. Virgo and child, the pattern of all innocence that even beasts worship.

 _Bullshit_ , John thinks, and he feels absolutely no shame.

Sherlock comes out of the sacristy with an empty box.

"Oh, John-" he smiles.

"Did you come to bow too?" he nods to Bethlehem.

"No," John puts his hands in his pockets.

The cynic slowly takes control.

"You're right, I'm an unbeliever too," Sherlock nods.

"Or more like an agnostic."

"But that doesn't stop you from doing good deeds," John points to the empty box in Sherlock's hands, which he knows was a moment ago full of honey goodies.

"No, it doesn´t."

"A saint who doesn't believe ..." John lifts a corner in a beastly smile. He knows very well that the title gives Sherlock a touch of vulnerability. Prey sign.

"I'm far from holiness, you have to be pretty blind to something like that. And I always see too much," Sherlock won't let himself be cornered.

"For example?" John asks, and it sounds dark like a curse. All the more in church.

Sherlock drops hand with the box to his side and takes two steps toward John. Steam condenses from his mouth.

"I know when somebody have a secret. And I usually find out what kind."

That confidence. It sounded as if Sherlock had quietly survived everyone around him, the church, the village, the whole island, and the rest of the world, waiting for God to catch his breath.

"Really?"

Nod. Next step. They are not facing each other, but if they want to, they can touch their shoulders.

"I'm not sweet," Sherlock whispers to John's unspoken question, then leaves.

End of words. Now it's the turn of action.

Soon.


	5. Christmas Eve

John sits at a table in his dimly lit kitchen, staring at the small tree he has decorated.

He has a glass of whiskey in his hand and sweats, even though it´s only ten degrees in the house and the fire in the fireplace is fading.Three days to the full moon. He smells deer in the nearby forest.He hears cars on the road eight kilometers away.He sees microscopic cracks in the plaster.

He drinks.

With any luck, he'll be drunk tonight, and he'll lie down without feeling the urge to run into the woods. He remembers... as a child, he loved Christmas. Fairy lights, turkey and pudding. Mother's warm brown dress, which always smelled of some cheap floral perfume. Now Christmas was just the date of the year. He survived it, sometimes calmly, sometimes howling, as the moon danced across the night sky.

Suddenly he hears footsteps.

Still far ... a kilometer. Persistent steps of a tall man. John sits and listens to the ticking of the clock.

*

A basket of food, alcohol and fruit landed on the table.

"Did you rob that church charity?"

John growled as he closed the door behind Sherlock.

He was not in a position to bother with politeness.

"Actually, yes. I know a lot of ladies from St. Andrew's who didn't want the nice beekeeper and the lonely doctor to starve at Christmas."

Sherlock added to the heater, then took off his jacket and sweater so that his scent reached John.

"So you did another good deed."

"You must be hungry."

"No, I´m not."   
An obvious lie.

"Really?" Sherlock raised an eyebrow and his voice dropped so deep that he could vibrate thin glasses if John had some.

"I thought the wolf was still hungry. Hence the stupid saying of wolf hunger," he added, as if by the way, and unpacked the basket.

John felt like after an explosion - his world was silent for a second.

" What?"

Sherlock shrugged and examined the contents of the glasses.

"I told you I would reveal any secret. And as I sayOnce you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth..And I'm not known for having any prejudices against the improbable."

" How..?"

"I see things. You've been living here for a total of three months, I've seen you in the town a few times, mostly with some scratches and abrasions.

Transformations are not pleasant matters. As you would say, John, I'm not stupid. Now ask why I'm here. "

John couldn't form the words.

"Because I like risk, that's why. I like to prove I was right. And because I haven't _had_ anyone in a long time. So what, Doctor - shall we make Christmas?"

There was only one way John could respond to the challenges.

He picked up a glass from the table that he knew was a honey product and slowly opened it. He picked up summer-scented goodie on two fingers and ran them over Sherlock's lips. Just because he was half animal didn't mean he couldn't enjoy himself. He kissed him tenderly, tasting honey mixed with the taste of a man who said he was not sweet. He lied shamelessly. The legs of the table creaked on the floor as Sherlock leaned against it, and a few glasses fell to the ground and shattered. They ignored them. John's nostrils were irritated by the smell of pickled meat and cranberries. However, the only thing he was interested in now was right in front of him, he took off his sweater and shirt, which separated him from the fragrant skin.

"Surprised?"Sherlock asked as the last piece of clothing was gone.

"Not at all," John muttered, running his fingers over the extensive tattoo.

The yellow and black hexagons of the honeycombs covered the white area of the ribs, hips, and shoulders.

He licked the nipple trapped in one of them.

_Sweet as honey,_   
_I was crazy when_   
_I foolishly teased you when_   
_I let you linger in uncertainty,_   
_and so he denied everything_   
_I intend to have tonight ..._

With growing impatience, he pulled Sherlock's pants to his knees, dipped his fingers in the honey again, and ran them over his erection. The answer was a loud, throaty sigh.

He was going to get a lot more. He bent down and licked the sticky mass and sucked until he heard a moan and his name until he felt a bitter sweet spot on his tongue and Sherlock fell to the ground with trembling knees.

Only then did John allow the wolf to bite, and there, on the floor between the shards, he took what he had wanted for a whole month.


End file.
